Who was that masked man, anyway?
by Uovoc
Summary: Jackson Overland Frost was undoubtedly the most elusive student who ever walked the halls of Hogwarts. Not in the literal sense; anyone could easily pick out his untidy peak of white hair from among the sea of black cloaks. Jack keeps his staff.
1. Who was that masked man, anyway?

Jackson Overland Frost was undoubtedly the most elusive student who ever walked the halls of Hogwarts.

Not in the literal sense; anyone could easily pick out from among the sea of black cloaks his untidy peak of white hair. Nor did he actually walk per se; he was more likely to be seen sprinting, bounding, pelting, sneaking, or trotting up and down the stone staircases with boundless energy. Everyone, from first years to seventh years, knew who Jack Frost was.

Reports of his academic aptitude came from diverse ages. According to the third years, he was terrible at Transfiguration, hopeless at Charms, and mediocre at Potions. The fourth years said he barely passed Herbology. But the biggest surprise of all came from the sixth years, who had him in their Astronomy class and pronounced him utterly superb. Jack himself preferred to hang around with the first years.

No one ever saw hide nor hair of him in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Along with his age, his background was similarly mysterious. Although his accent was decidedly American, when asked where he was from, he would reply vaguely, "North." Unable to get him to elaborate further, they thought he might mean Canada.

Dennis Creevey said, very seriously, that he must have come from the North Pole. His fellow Gryffindors laughed, but such having a peculiar place of origin would account for some of his more eccentric habits.

For example, Jack did not own a wand. Instead, he kept on him at all times a sturdy staff of gnarled wood, a staff that was even taller than he was. Teachers raised eyebrows but otherwise did not comment on this anomaly. It made the older girls giggle scandalously, and the older boys give him a hard time. A knot of Slytherin sixth years took it upon themselves to taunt Jack about his lack of a proper wand at every opportunity.

Oddly enough, Jack showed nothing but sincere remorse when he visited them in the hospital wing, where the entire gang was being treated for severe hypothermia.

* * *

Yet another extraordinary event was his befriending of Peeves.

Somehow, Jack managed to never run afoul of a single one of the poltergeist's traps. Peeves, sensing the presence of a master on par with himself, redoubled his efforts.

Dozens of students bore witness to this exchange:

As was his habit on snowy days, Peeves had been lurking outside around the school entrances, ambushing unwary students the minute they walked out the door. Upon seeing Jack's silvery hair, he cackled gleefully and unleashed a volley of snowballs.

Unlike the other students, Jack did not cover his head, run, or make any other attempt to flee. Instead, he whipped around to face his assailant.

At this point, the accounts tend to diverge.

Some say that Jack shot out an arm and, with the precision of a Seeker, caught Peeve's next throw. Others say a snowball appeared in his hand out of thin air. Still others insist that he simply scooped up a handful of snow and packed it like a normal person, but this last group tends to be scornfully looked down upon.

(Dennis Creevey always swore that Jack had raised a miniature army of four-inch snowmen.)

Regardless of how it got there, there was a snowball in Jack's hand. He wound up—students shouted at him not to do it—mimicking Jack's actions, Peeves grabbed a lump of snow—they both threw—all over the courtyard, heads turned to watch—Peeves missed his target—

Jack's snowball, ignorant of the incorporeality of poltergeists, hit Peeves squarely between the eyes.

A two-man war erupted in the snow.

Who would've won was anyone's guess, as the Headmistress had to forcibly drag Jack back indoors long after dusk had fallen. It took her quite a lot of force, since Peeves was pulling him the other way.

From that day on, they had formed a kind of alliance. It wasn't uncommon to walk into an empty classroom and find Jack excitedly giving instructions to an attentive Peeves, or to see Jack hauling buckets of muck from the Weasley swamp up the stairs, while the floating little man cheered him on.

This turn of events gave rise to the popular rumor that Jack was an undercover envoy from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, sent to Hogwarts to conduct field research. Therefore, he was not really a student at all, which would explain why he seemed to lack a House.

Jack was nice to everyone. That is to say, he wasn't _especially_ friendly to anyone. Whether you were a Slytherin or a Hufflepuff, he greeted you with equal familiarity. No one remembered seeing him in the Great Hall. Likewise, nobody knew which dormitory he slept in.

"I thought he was in _your_ house," people often said. Anastasia Clearwater claimed to have seen him napping in a tree in the Forbidden Forest, but later admitted that it could have been a unicorn that she had glimpsed.

* * *

So when the Hufflepuff Seeker fractured his skull and Jack Frost showed up to replace him, they thought that every question ever pondered about Jack's allegiance had been answered at last.

Alas, it was not to be.

"He just walked up to me," whispered the Captain, "and asked if he could be the replacement. I thought he had to be a Hufflepuff because no one in their right mind would ditch their House for us."

"Can he fly? Does he have a broom?" the team wanted to know.

Their Captain didn't respond immediately. There was a faraway look on his face.

"Fly?" he repeated distantly.

They received the answer to their second question, at least, when Frost walked out onto the pitch, staff in hand.

"Is that even allowed?" wondered one of the Beaters.

"Must be, or else Hooch never would've let him play," said the other.

They mounted their brooms, Looking foolish (at least to his new teammates; he himself was smirking self-confidently), Frost swung a leg over his staff.

Could Jack Frost fly?

Did Harry Potter have a scar?

As it turned out, Jack spent very little time actually sitting on his broom-staff. He stood on it, he surfed with it, he used it to deflect a stray Bludger. Mostly, he hung from the staff with one hand, as if the physical contact alone enabled his entire body to gain the properties of the Snitch he sought. It was, in fact, almost as though Jack were flying without the aid of his staff at all.

Even the wind seemed to always favor Jack's direction, and at the same time retard the progress of the fluttering Snitch.

Visions of House Cups danced through the team's heads.

The captain dismissed practice with tears in his eyes. But when he reached out to clap their newest member on the back, Jack was nowhere to be seen. Mystified, he settled for hugging the Chaser.

They were unable to contain their excitement that night in the Common Room.

"Did you see that dive?"

"How he hit the rogue Bludger?"

"So that's what the staff's for."

Speaking of the devil, why hadn't he come back to the Common Room yet?

The captain shrugged. "I don't care where he sleeps, as long as he shows up next practice."

The rumor mill started grinding again.

They speculated that his staff, like Hagrid's umbrella, had a wand embedded in it. By "north", he meant Durmstrang. He had been expelled, his wand snapped in half. He was on the run from the Bulgarian version of Aurors. THey had cursed his hair white to make him instantly recognizable. He had sought asylum at Hogwarts. He was afraid to go to DADA classes for fear of revealing his knowledge of the Dark Arts. He was Viktor Krum in disguise. He was a Malfoy in disguise. He was You-Know-Who in disguise.

When confronted with all this, Jack merely smirked, neither confirming nor refuting their allegations.

"You know me," was all he would say. "I'm Jack Frost."

And that, indeed, was all they really knew.

* * *

_I have yet to find an ROTG/HP fanfic where Jack keeps his staff. Somehow, the image of all these kids with their dinky little wands, and then Jack with his freakin' staff, is irresistable. Plus, he just looks incomplete without it. A wand just doesn't cut it for Jack._

_Things grew a bit from there. Was it everything you ever imagined? Nothing you would ever want to imagine? Please review!_


	2. The passing of Argus Filch

_Time to introduce some conflict. Plus, the "Pitch teams up with Voldy" idea got kind of old._

* * *

Judging from the displays set up around the casket, you would think that the deceased was leaving behind a sorry wake indeed. That is, until you noticed that what you had mistaken for flower arrangements were actually beribboned bouquets of Dungbombs, lovingly tied with lengths of Extendable Ears.

The passing of Hogwarts's caretaker had not been an entirely unhappy occasion. Far more solemn than Argus Filch's funeral was the induction of his successor as disciplinarian.

The tall, dark stranger sitting at the staff table had been drawing curious glances all through dinner, so when McGonagall got to her feet, there was instant silence. Everyone turned to face her attentively, waiting to find out who the newcomer was. Surprised by their suddenly riveted gazes, the Headmistress cleared her throat to speak.

"As we all know," she began, "the Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch, has sadly" —her lips twitched— "passed away. Here to fill his role is Mr.— " She looked inquiringly at the stranger.

"Kozmotis Pitchiner," said he in a velvet bass.

The students were taken aback; they had unconsciously been expecting a high, cold voice.

"—yes. I trust that you will not obstruct him in fulfilling his duties," concluded McGonagall, fixing them with a steely glare.

As it turned out, she need not have worried. By lunch the next day, they had sized up the new authority as only seasoned students can. Their unerring pupillary instincts told them that Pitchiner was not a man to cross.

In addition to inheriting Filch's office, he had his predecessor's knack for popping up where least expected.

Zacharias Smith swore that the dungeon had been deserted when he and Bernice Montague first entered. "Then just as things are warming up, Pitchiner pops out of the corner and tells us off for sneaking around," he complained to his disappointed huddle of friends. "Bernie screamed right into my ear."

His experience was a common one. People soon took to double checking behind doors, in alcoves, and even under tables (Pitchiner had claimed to be removing old chewing gum). It was a nasty surprise to gingerly pull back a tapestry, only to find his catlike eyes staring back at you. No one had ever seen Pitchiner actually in the act of cleaning, despite his innocently subservient excuses.

And the fact was, what with his grayish pallor, skeletally black-robed frame, and nose like a blunt meat cleaver, Pitch could almost be mistaken for... well...

"You-Know-Who," confessed Bernice in a frightened whisper.

"Don't be silly, You-Know-Who's dead," replied Zacharias in what he thought were reassuring tones.

An undeniable truth. A good number of older students had seen it happen firsthand. They were eyewitnesses to the body's slow arc as it crumpled to the ground, where it lay until... until...

What _had_ they done with the body? Amidst the chaotic mix of grief and exhilaration following the battle, it had somehow slipped everyone's mind. There definitely hadn't been a funeral. At Filch's burial, there hadn't been another nearby headstone engraved with the words "He Who Must Not Be Named." Come to think of it, had anyone thought to check for a pulse? After all, it was said that Harry Potter was like You-Know-Who's mirror image twice over, and Harry had survived the Killing Curse multiple times...

It was a troubling thought.

There was only one hole in this theory. Well, two. The first was the hair: Pitchinier had some. That was only a minor snag; it made perfect sense for You-Know-Who to want a disguise. The stiff black spikes looked more like a shellacked wig, anyway.

The second inconsistency was harder to ignore. Aside from trying to catch them at rulebreaking, which was perfectly acceptable teacher behavior, Pitch hadn't actually done anything to hurt them. Even the staunchest paranoiacs found it hard to explain why You-Know-Who's plan of revenge consisted of curfew enforcement.

They soon discovered that there was a third thing, too.

Pitchiner was afraid of Jack Frost.

Maurice Kimberly, the quietest second-year in the school, realized it first. Nobody paid attention to Maurice, but Maurice noticed everything. They didn't believe him at first. But when he deigned to speak, his words tended to linger in your head, so you ended up hearing his voice wherever you were.

Maurice's voice said:

_Haven't you noticed? Pitchiner and Jack are never in the same place at once. They're never in a room together. Pitchiner disappears when Jack walks down the hall. Jack has never, ever gotten caught by Pitchiner for anything._

Of course, this caused some impressionable youngsters to conclude that Pitchiner was Jack in disguise, or that Jack was really Harry Potter. Most people, though, followed Maurice's lead and started watching the two like hawks.

As usual, Maurice was absolutely right. Jack experienced a surge in popularity. People liked to be wherever Jack was, because that was where Pitchiner wasn't.

"I bet Jack doesn't even know that Pitchiner exists," said Appleby Church in his big, slow voice.

Uncanny accuracy from Maurice happened all the time.

But no one expected it from Appleby.

* * *

_You'll notice, when reading Deathly Hallows, that they never say what they did with the corpse. I personally think that Harry buried him with the rest of the Riddle family. The name on the headstone? Tom Marvolo Riddle, of course._

_Any alternative theories out there? _

_Sorry for dropping all these OCs on you. JK Rowling included the names of far too few characters who were younger than Harry. But the main focus is on Jack and Pitch, of course. Next chapter will contain the inevitable conflict._


	3. Opposing Forces

_Remember those Slytherin sixth years who were tormenting Jack about his staff? And how they ended up in the hospital wing with hypothermia? Good. _

* * *

Jack was cornered in the library by Harm Pike and his gang.

The lyrically named Harmonious was the only child of Monstrous and Thessaly Pike.

Yes, the very same Pikes who made up the enormously popular (in the mid-eighties, at least) singing duo "Magical Thinking," who broke seven records with their hit singles, "Spellbind Me, Baby," "Touch My Portkey (It'll Take You Places)," and, last but not least, "Twelve-Inch Wand." The same Pikes who spent two months in Azkaban for violating the International Statute of Secrecy by running a wizarding awareness group for Muggles. Public outcry made the Ministry cut their sentence short.

The same Pikes who eventually settled down in a rural Muggle village, where they had a son. They named him Harmonious, to reflect their hopes for the relations between magical and nonmagical folk. They encouraged their child to commune with the local children, and he attended the one-room Muggle schoolhouse with them until the age of eleven.

Faced with such gentle, freethinking parentage, saddled with the name "Harmonious," there was only one path for the boy to take. He grew into the kind of vicious hellion who makes the other young lads' fathers cry.

He called himself "Harm."

Once he arrived at Hogwarts, Harm was delighted to discover new, more refined ways to torment his peers. Still, he and his gang—which consisted of him and Ferris "Feral" Wilder—often fell back on good old-fashioned taunts and jibes. In their sixth year, Jack Frost had borne the brunt of their attentions.

However, their recent illness had greatly mellowed Harm and Feral. They seemed to have rather lost their appetite for harrassing younger students, and now treated Jack with the utmost respect.

So perhaps "cornered" was too strong a word to describe how they tracked down Jack in the library. Instead, they approached him almost timidly, craning their necks (for Jack was sitting on top of the towering bookshelves, immersed in his reading).

"We want to talk to you," whispered Harm loudly, by way of a greeting. Jack showed no sign of even noticing them.

"Hey!" hissed Harm, a little louder. "I said we want to talk!"

This time, Jack looked down at them. Grabbing his staff, he jumped off the bookshelf, landing lightly in front of the two Slytherins.

"Nice to see you, too," he said brightly. "Glad you're feeling better."

They cringed. "We're, uh, really sorry for what we said about you before," mumbled Feral, nervously cracking his knuckles.

"Yeah, I bet," said Jack, without a trace of sarcasm. "Was that all you wanted to say?"

"There's actually something else," admitted Harm. "We were wondering if you would, er, like to be friends." He forced out the words. "Join our gang, like," he added hopefully.

Jack took a step back. "Wait a minute. You—" he pointed the crook of his staff at them, making them flinch—"want to be _friends?_ With _me__?_" The staff stayed aiming at Harm. "Tell me the truth."

Harm's terrified eyes darted from the staff to Jack's narrowed eyes, and back to the staff. He gulped.

"Thenewcaretakerisawfulbutheneverbothersyousowetho ughtifyoujoinedusthenhe'dleaveusalone," he said.

Jack lowered his staff. "What?"

Harm visibly relaxed. "The new caretaker," he said normally. "He's awful."

Jack tilted his head. "Filch? But Filch died," he said, puzzled. "Wait, you're not telling me that he's—"

"Merlin's pants, how long have you been up there?" said Feral, amazed. "We're talking about the new one. Follows you all over the place, it's bloody horrible."

Jack was thoroughly confused. "New one? But I haven't seen—"

"Our point exactly," cut in Harm. "He leaves you alone. Maurice said so. Said Pitchiner's afraid of you."

Jack drew in a sharp breath. "What did you just say?"

"It was Maurice's idea, I was only—" babbled Harm.

"No, not that. His name. What was his name?"

"Kozmotis Pitchiner," replied Harm.

"Pitchiner, _Pitch_iner," muttered Jack, gripping his staff. His head whipped back to Feral. "What does he look like?"

Feral shifted uneasily. "Well—he—he looks a bit like You-Know-Who. Everybody thinks so," he added defensively.

"Who?" said Jack blankly.

"Jack wasn't here for that, you dolt," snapped Harm. "Got spiky black hair, nose like a meat cleaver, skin like a mermaid's if mermaids were gray and not, you know, scaly. Wears black."

Jack swore under his breath, a foreign-sounding oath. "Pitch!"

He ran to the end of the row of shelves, looking wildly around as if Pitchiner might suddenly step out of the Herbology section.

"Pitch!" he shouted, causing Madam Pince to hurry over, wearing a murderous grimace.

"Mr. Frost, Mr. Pike, Mr. Wilder, this is a _library_!" she seethed.

Jack ignored her. He focused on Feral. "Where is he?" he demanded.

"How'm I supposed to know?" said Feral, bewildered.

Jack shook his head violently. "Doesn't matter. I'll find him. PITCH!" he bellowed as he sprinted from the library.

"_Mister_ Frost, may I remind you—" began Madam Pince, but Jack was already gone. Taking one look at the librarian's furious expression, Harm and Feral copied him.

* * *

Jack did not appear in any of his classes that day. However, the dungeons became mysteriously inaccessible: all the doors had vanished, leaving behind expanses of blank stone. Even Flitwick couldn't explain what had happened, or make them reappear again. After two hours, he told Professor Slughorn to cancel Potions for the time being.

Periodically, students heard distant booms echoing from beneath their feet. When this occurred, the floor trembled delicately. So did Professor Trelawney, as her class dissolved into excited whispers.

"Perhaps," she said testily, "the crystal may inform us of the whereabouts of Mr. Frost, seeing as you are all so concerned."

Harm and Feral had spread the word. The entire school knew that Jack was facing down Pitchiner in the dungeons. With each explosion, they wondered who had taken the hit.

"I hope he's okay," sighed Lucretia Worthington anxiously. They didn't need to ask who she meant.

"Jack will win," said Dennis Creevey confidently. "Pitchinier was terrified of him, remember?"

In his History of Magic class, Maurice listened intently to every nuance of the distant blasts.

* * *

The next morning, the doors had reappeared.

Despite the warnings of teachers, Harm and Feral sneaked down to try and force a set open. Dozens of students stood on tiptoe, wanting to get a glimpse of what—or who—lay inside.

They Slytherins were having trouble. "They're frozen shut," announced Harm. He enlisted several others, and they conjured up flames to warm the icy metal.

After an agonizingly long time, they were able to pull the doors open.

A frigid blast of wind hit them in the face. A couple people screamed. Even more drew their wands, ready to defend themselves against whatever emerged.

"STUPEFY!" shouted Feral, blindly aiming into the dungeon. Harm punched him in the jaw.

"You idiot, you could've hit Jack!"

They peered into the dim space beyond, hardly believing their eyes.

The dungeons looked like a glacier that had gotten itself partially incinerated.

A thick layer of ice covered the walls, and they could see their breath hanging in the air. In some places, the ice showed scorch marks similar to what fireworks left on the ground. When Harm carefully ran a hand over one, he found that they were actually grains of black sand, embedded in the frost.

The floor was covered with rubbish and the same strange sand.

"That cauldron cost me seven Galleons," moaned Appleby, kicking a twisted lump of metal.

"Who cares about your stupid cauldron, where's Jack?" Lucretia shot back tearfully.

"They must have escaped," said Dennis.

"How? The doors were sealed, and there aren't any windows," pointed out Harm.

Maurice said nothing, only ran handfuls of sand through his fingers, thoughtful.

They scoured the dungeons, but found no trace of either Jack or Pitchiner. Undeterred, they continued to shift piles of rubble. Lucretia grew increasingly hysterical.

"What if Pitchiner got him? What if Jack's d—"

"Shut up, will you?" growled Harm, checking inside a fallen suit of armor. He closed the visor with a clang. "Help us move these rocks."

* * *

They were still down there, searching, when the teacher arrived to send them back to their respective classes.

They had Potions again that day. The dungeons were now spotless. Flitwick had repaired everyone's cauldrons, much to Appleby's relief.

McGonagall did not appoint another caretaker.

Neither Jack Frost nor Kozmotis Pitchiner were ever seen within the halls of Hogwarts again.

* * *

_That about wraps that up. Sorry for dropping more OCs on you again. Hope they weren't too maddening._

_How was the ending? I tried to keep intact that air of mystery. As always, reviews are food for the soul!_


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